I thought the consensus was crystal clear. Almost nobody wants a limit *IF* uDevGames is not hosting the games. However, a lot of people seem to think uDevGames *should* host the games, so that's the first sticking point to resolve.

Carlos needs to clearly explain why uDG won't be hosting the files (or if it will), especially if there's no other clear use for the entrance fees. (Other than almost two years of hosting costs.)

40 or 50MB is just as arbitrary, and we'll be in exactly the same spot next uDevGames.

My view is that a limit does not help any entrants in any way, but it may penalize some entrants.

The only need I can see for a size limit is if someone is paying for the bandwidth, and they decide that there is a risk of paying too much. In the FAQ it says that iDevGames will host all binaries and source.

So, If this is true, and iDevGames is bearing the cost of hosting, then fair enough. Perhaps we should focus the discussion towards finding a solution to the hosting cost problem. Is this true?

The idea when we wrote the rules was that the $10 entry fee would be (on average) more than enough to pay for S3 for all the entries, given the 20MB size limit, for the voting period at least, and probably longer.

Carlos has stolen the $10 entry fee to pay for prize shipping because he refuses to tell sponsors that they must ship direct to the winners. That means that he has nothing to pay for hosting the entries with, so he wants the developers to a) pay the $10 for their prizes, and b) pay for everyone in the world to download their game for free.

That doesn't seem fair or right to me, but that's where we are at the moment.

This poll was created on the assumption that Carlos' position is set in stone, the entry fee money is as good as gone, and entrants are paying for their own hosting. Unless someone knows of Carlos intending to reverse his decision, the poll is relevant as it stands (and the rules/FAQ need to be altered to remove the language about uDevGames doing the hosting).

OneSadCookie Wrote:Carlos has stolen the $10 entry fee to pay for prize shipping because he refuses to tell sponsors that they must ship direct to the winners.

You've overstepped.

I can say from experience that the sponsors can be a pain to deal with, no matter how well-meaning many of them are. I spent months after one of the uDG contest, sending developer names and addresses to the sponsors, then chasing down prizes. Some sponsors were timely and great. Sometimes the person we had dealt with wasn't with the company any more. Sometimes they would be the same person but have to be bugged 5+ times, and would get pissy at me for having the temerity to bug them. Sometimes they'd promise to ship to the dev's address but would ship to Carlos. Or they'd ship to the right address but ship it collect because it was international. One poor developer couldn't pay that, couldn't get his parents to agree to pay it, and lost all the lovely, heavy books he'd earned.

Regardless of what promises you think we can extract from sponsors, we'd be idiots not to set money aside to smooth over the virtually inevitable prize issues. Heck, I'd also set aside consolation money for the poor schmoe who has to deal with it. And for Carlos's wife for putting up with this contest.

I don't agree with all of Carlos's methods or decisions, but to claim he is in any sense stealing the money is way beyond the pale.

MattDiamond: in none of those situations should it cost Carlos a cent. In each case the sponsor is at fault, and should be held accountable. If a sponsor is hard to deal with one time, don't deal with them again. We do them more of a favor than they do us, by and large. If physical objects (books, etc.) are repeatedly problematic, insist on electronic prizes, or Amazon credit, or something like that which avoids the problem. Sign a legal contract if that's the only way.

"Stolen" was a deliberately inflammatory word, but the bottom line is that poor behavior on the part of the sponsors should *not* affect the entrants, and charging lower-placing entrants for the prizes that higher-placing entrants receive is significantly back-handed. Even charging entrants who receive prizes to send them is significantly back-handed.

If the money is going toward shipping prizes, and you really believe that is a legitimate use for that fee structure, how about allowing entry for $0, but disallowing any $0-entrant from receiving any physical prizes? Goodness only knows there are enough electronic ones on the list. I wonder how many people would want to pay the $10?

OSC, I totally agree that in principle it shouldn't cost Carlos or a developer a cent. But there were problems with at least half of them. Not all involved shipping costs, but there were a bunch of those. When a problem arises it really sucks to tell a developer who specifically selected a prize, "sorry, no prize, the sponsor shipped it to the wrong place." It's also no consolation for him or her to be told that we won't use that sponsor next year. So it makes sense to hold some money in reserve.

(As I recall the book publishers were particularly difficult to deal with. Most of us love book prizes but it might be easier if we gave them a miss.)

Your suggestion about two tiers of entrants ($0, $10) is interesting, but I personally don't think the the money must be allocated for prize handling, hosting, or otherwise not charged at all. Many contests have an entrance fee to cover incidental expenses, and the entrants are usually not told what is done with the money. Given the time and effort these contests take I don't think Carlos needs to justify it.

I'm not going to go back in all the discussions to dissect who said what, but the problem seems to be that some people thought it was settled that the uDG would be hosting the entries. I would prefer that too. An individual's hosting issues can be disruptive to the contest, and a few broken links reflects poorly on all the entries. Ideally we would have hosting AND keep some money in reserve for unexpected expenses. Would that require a higher entrance fee? I don't know.

reubert Wrote:40 or 50MB is just as arbitrary, and we'll be in exactly the same spot next uDevGames.

My view is that a limit does not help any entrants in any way, but it may penalize some entrants.

The only need I can see for a size limit is if someone is paying for the bandwidth, and they decide that there is a risk of paying too much. In the FAQ it says that iDevGames will host all binaries and source.

So, If this is true, and iDevGames is bearing the cost of hosting, then fair enough. Perhaps we should focus the discussion towards finding a solution to the hosting cost problem. Is this true?

Aye it is arbitrary, and kind of an ironic suggestion. However, unless we can get a reliable file host for this contest, setting some kind of limit is necessary.

I'm not sure if you have tried in the past... but has anyone even considered contacting Apple to see if they would be a willing sponsor? If only to donate bandwidth and file hosting? If they create a large profile for the contest people can upload information regarding their game without using external resources, and everyone would be on equal footing.

Giving a limit is fine and Dandy, but it should be raised each year in order to keep up with current technologies.

Apple will not give resources to anything but finished polished products that increase their image.

If anyone at Apple has had experience with this contest then Apple will have nothing to do with this contest for all eternity.
Why? Because promises made in previous contests (and claimed in the current one) have not been kept and the quality of at
least a third of the submissions doesn't make the Mac game market look good.

They will gladly jump on the bandwagon of a completed high quality product that boosts their image and gives them something
to brag about on their well hidden games page.

If you do finish your game for the contest, and submit to Apple for marketing, and they put it on their page,
expect about 60,000 hits in a week or a day. And maybe 6 votes out of that 60,000.

Through CNet download advertising thats about what my first contest game Antack, did in a month, well technically a quarter of that since it was 5 meg download.
That was just from Windows users, it took about six months to a year longer to reach those numbers from Mac users.
Cnet charged me $99 a month for 3 months (hidden in their agreement)...they didn't even host, I got hit with another $300
in overcharges from my provider before switching my downloads to my iTunes account which didn't allow for tracking download counts.

My provider has since upgraded their bandwidth to 20 gigs a month at $6 a month. icdsoft if you need hosting.